The Susan J. Bandes Endowment Fund provides support to Museum Studies and Art History students including funds for hands-on experiences such as internships, research, and conference presentations that may otherwise have been undertaken at an additional cost to the student or been cost prohibitive. Donations to the fund will be matched up on a 1-1 basis.
Biography
Susan J. Bandes is Professor of Art History and Visual Culture. She grew up in New York, attended New York University as an undergraduate and received her MA and PhD degrees from Bryn Mawr College, specializing in Roman Baroque painting. She served as Director of MSU’s Kresge Art Museum (now the Broad Art Museum) from 1986 until 2010 where she curated numerous exhibitions and wrote many catalogues. Among these are: Affordable Dreams: The Goetsch-Winkler House and Frank Lloyd Wright, an exhibition and subsequent edited book on the local Usonian house’s 50th anniversary in 1990; WPA in Michigan; and American Modernism. She frequently taught Renaissance and Baroque Art, Modern Architecture and Curatorial Practices. She served as Director of Museum Studies for many years. She is a member of the Print Council of America and a founding director of DOCOMOMO-Michigan, which documents the midcentury modern architecture of Michigan. Bandes research in that field has included the exhibitions East Lansing Modern, 1940-1970 (MSU Museum) and at the Minds of Modernism: Michigan and Mid-Century Design, 2017 (Michigan History Museum). Her publication, Mid-Michigan Modern: From Frank Lloyd Wright to Googie, MSU Press, 2016, won several awards and will be published in an expanded paper edition later this year.